Mark Twain on Land Monopoly

From Dan Sullivan <pimann@pobox.com>
21 September 1995

The Henry George School of New York has the major Twain article,
"Archemedes," on its gopher site. You might just want to send a
pointer to it. Check out the site first:

gopher://echonyc.com/11s/Cul/HGS

Also, noted Twain expert Jim Zwick has contacted me and chimed in
with the belief that this is authentic Twain, and plans to include it
on his site:

http://web.syr.edu/~fjzwick/

Enclosed is the full text plus a few other Twain quotes from later
years that strongly support its authenticity, from a digest sent to
a mailing list I manage called LandAccess. The list is dedicated to
breaking up land monopoly through the implementation of a tax on
land values. Let me know if you have any further questions, if you
have interest in the 1920 Churchill speech on the same subject, or if
you are interested in the mailing list. It is a fairly low volume
list at this time, with about one digest per week.

To fellow LandAccess list members:

The following will be cross-posted tomorrow (Monday, September 18,
1995) on several Usenet newsgroups, including alt.politics.economics,
alt.politics.greens, and alt.politics.libertarian. If your internet
service includes access to these newsgroups, feel free to chime in on
the debate that is likely to follow. I have generally been avoiding
reference to Henry George, partly because I find it easier to resist
quoting him at all than to quote him in moderation, and I find I have
more credibility if I avoid sounding like a "Jehovah Georgist."

This is so long that I am giving it its own digest number. Other
messages will follow. If you have something to tell the group, send it
in.

Dan Sullivan

A month or so ago I posted a Winston Churchill speech condemning land
monopoly. (which you can have if you drop me an e-note) This month is
the Twain articles.

Those who treat land and natural resources as no different from
legitimate capital are at odds not only with Churchill and Twain, with
the very icons of free enterprise, including:

The following article, ostensibly written by Mark Twain, equates land
monopoly with slavery.

Shortly after a Mark Twain visit to Australia, the following article
appeared in the Australian Standard, a partisan newspaper dedicated to
abolition of land monopoly through application of land value taxation.
The name of the auther was listed as Twark Main.

Except for a few photocopies circulated among land tax advocates, the
article has been generally out of circulation since its original
publication in 1887.

There is some dispute among Mark Twain scholars as to whether he
actually authored this piece. It has Twain's drippingly sarcastic
style, in which he pretend to be enthused about what he was actually
condemning. More importantly, many statements that Twain made later
are strikingly similar to statements made in this article. So if this
is not genuine Mark Twain, the author was not only an excellent
imitator, but clairvoyant.

The article is followed by quotations from later works of Mark
Twain's that reinforce the perspective originally put forward in
"Archimedes," strongly indicating that he wrote it.

Article Follows

Archimedes

by Twark Main [Mark Twain?]

"Give me whereon to stand", said Archimedes, "and I will move the
earth." The boast was a pretty safe one, for he knew quite well that
the standing place was wanting, and always would be wanting. But
suppose he had moved the earth, what then? What benefit would it have
been to anybody? The job would never have paid working expenses, let
alone dividends, and so what was the use of talking about it? From
what astronomers tell us, I should reckon that the earth moved quite
fast enough already, and if there happened to be a few cranks who were
dissatisfied with its rate of progress, as far as I am concerned, they
might push it along for themselves; I would not move a finger or
subscribe a penny piece to assist in anything of the kind.

Why such a fellow as Archimedes should be looked upon as a genius I
never could understand; I never heard that he made a pile, or did
anything else worth talking about. As for that last contract he took
in hand, it was the worst bungle I ever knew; he undertook to keep the
Romans out of Syracuse; he tried first one dodge and then another, but
they got in after all, and when it came to fair fighting he was out of
it altogether, a common soldier in a very business-like sort of way
settling all his pretensions.

It is evident that he was an over-rated man. He was in the habit of
making a lot of fuss about his screws and levers, but his knowledge of
mechanics was in reality of a very limited character. I have never set
up for a genius myself, but I know of a mechanical force more powerful
than anything the vaunting engineer of Syracuse ever dreamed of. It
is the force of land monopoly; it is a screw and lever all in one; it
will screw the last penny out of a man's pocket, and bend everything
on earth to its own despotic will. Give me the private ownership of
all the land, and will I move the earth? No; but I will do more. I
will undertake to make slaves of all the human beings on the face of
it. Not chattel slaves exactly, but slaves nevertheless.
What an idiot I would be to make chattel slaves of them. I would
have to find them salts and senna when they were sick, and whip them
to work when they were lazy.

No, it is not good enough. Under the system I propose the fools
would imagine they were all free. I would get a maximum of results,
and have no responsibility whatever. They would cultivate the soil;
they would dive into the bowels of the earth for its hidden treasures;
they would build cities and construct railways and telegraphs; their
ships would navigate the ocean; they would work and work, and invent
and contrive; their warehouses would be full, their markets glutted,
and

The beauty of the whole concern would be That everything they made
would belong to me.

It would be this way, you see: As I owned all the land, they would of
course, have to pay me rent. They could not reasonably expect me to
allow them the use of the land for nothing. I am not a hard man, and
in fixing the rent I would be very liberal with them. I would allow
them, in fact, to fix it themselves. What could be fairer? Here is a
piece of land, let us say, it might be a farm, it might be a building
site, or it might be something else - if there was only one man who
wanted it, of course he would not offer me much, but if the land be
really worth anything such a circumstance is not likely to happen. On
the contrary, there would be a number who would want it, and they
would go on bidding and bidding one against the other, in order to get
it. I should accept the highest offer - what could be fairer? Every
increase of population, extension of trade, every advance in the arts
and sciences would, as we all know, increase the value of land, and
the competition that would naturally arise would continue to force
rents upward, so much so, that in many cases the tenants would have
little or nothing left for themselves.

In this case a number of those who were hard pushed would seek to
borrow, and as for those who were not so hard pushed, they would, as a
matter of course, get the idea into their heads that if they only had
more capital they could extend their operations, and thereby make
their business more profitable. Here I am again. The very man they
stand in need of; a regular benefactor of my species, and always ready
to oblige them. With such an enormous rent-roll I could furnish them
with funds up to the full extent of the available security; they would
not expect me to do more, and in the matter of interest I would be
equally generous.

I would allow them to fix the rate of it themselves in precisely the
same manner as they had fixed the rent. I should then have them by
the wool, and if they failed in their payments it would be the easiest
thing in the world to sell them out. They might bewail their lot, but
business is business. They should have worked harder and been more
provident. Whatever inconvenience they might suffer, it would be
their concern, and not mine. What a glorious time I would have of it!
Rent and interest, interest and rent, and no limit to either,
excepting the ability of the workers to pay. Rents would go up and
up, and they would continue to pledge and mortgage, and as they went
bung, bung, one after another, it would be the finest sport ever seen.
thus, from the simple leverage of land monopoly, not only the great
globe itself, but everything on the face of it would eventually belong
to me. I would be king and lord of all, and the rest of mankind would
be my most willing slaves.

It hardly needs to be said that it would not be consistent with my
dignity to associate with the common rank and file of humanity; it
would not be politic to say so, but, as a matter of fact, I not only
hate work but I hate those who do work, and I would not have their
stinking carcasses near me at any price. High above the contemptible
herd I would sit enthroned amid a circle of devoted worshippers. I
would choose for myself companions after my own heart. I would deck
them with ribbons and gewgaws to tickle their vanity; they would
esteem it an honour to kiss my glove, and would pay homage to the very
chair that I sat upon; brave men would die for me, parsons would pray
for me, and bright-eyed beauty would pander to my pleasures. For the
proper management of public affairs I would have a parliament, and for
the preservation of law and order there would be soldiers and
policemen, all sworn to serve me faithfully; their pay would not be
much, but their high sense of duty would be a sufficient guarantee
that they would fulfil the terms of the contract.

Outside the charmed circle of my society would be others eagerly
pressing forward in the hope of sharing my favours; outside of these
would be others again who would be forever seeking to wriggle
themselves into the ranks of those in front of them, and so on,
outward and downward, until we reach the deep ranks of the workers
forever toiling and forever struggling merely to live, and with the
hell of poverty forever threatening to engulf them. The hell of
poverty, that outer realm of darkness where there is weeping and
wailing and gnashing of teeth - the social Gehenna, where the worm
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched - here is a whip more
effective by far than the keenest lash of the chattel slave owner,
urging them on by day, haunting their dreams by night, draining
without stint the life blood from their veins, and pursuing them with
relentless constancy to their graves. In the buoyancy of youth many
would start full of hope and with high expectations; but, as they
journeyed along, disappointment would follow disappointment, hope
would gradually give place to despair, the promised cup of joy would
be turned to bitterness, and the holiest affection would become a
poisoned arrow quivering in the heart!

What a beautiful arrangement - ambition urging in front, want and the
fear of want bringing up the rear! In the conflicting interests that
would be involved, in the throat-cutting competition that would
prevail, in the bitterness that would be engendered between man and
man, husband and wife, father and son, I should, of course, have no
part. There would be lying and cheating, harsh treatment by masters,
dishonesty of servants, strikes and lockouts, assaults and
intimidation, family feuds and interminable broils; but they would not
concern Me. In the serene atmosphere of my earthly paradise I would
be safe from all evil. I would feast on the daintiest of dishes, and
sip wines of the choicest vintage; my gardens would have the most
magnificent terraces and the finest walks. I would roam mid the
umbrageous foliage of the trees, the blooming flowers, the warbling of
birds, the jetting of fountains, and the splashing of pellucid waters.
My palace would have its walls of alabaster and domes of crystal,
there would be furniture of the most exquisite workmanship, carpets
and hangings of the richest fabrics and finest textures, carvings and
paintings that were miracles of art, vessels of gold and silver, gems
of the purest ray glittering in their settings, the voluptuous strains
of the sweetest music, the perfume of roses, the softest of couches, a
horde of titled lackeys to come and go at my bidding, and a perfect
galaxy of beauty to stimulate desire, and administer to my enjoyment.
Thus would I pass the happy hours away, while throughout the world it
would be a hallmark of respectability to extol my virtues, and anthems
would be everywhere sung in praise.

Archimedes never dreamt of anything like that. Yet, with the earth
for my fulcrum and its private ownership for my lever, it is all
possible. If it should be said that the people would eventually
detect the fraud, and with swift vengeance hurl me and all my courtly
parasites to perdition, I answer, "Nothing of the kind, the people are
as good as gold, and would stand it like bricks, and I appeal to the
facts of today to bear me witness."

RELATED MARK TWAIN QUOTES 1

Twain on Cecil Rhodes as a land monopolizing enslaver...

What is the secret of his [Cecil Rhodes's] formidable supremacy? One
says it is his prodigious wealth--a wealth whose drippings in salaries
and and in other ways support multitudes and make them his interested
and loyal vassels; another says it is his personal magnetism and his
persuasive tongue, and that these hypnotize and make happy slaves of
all that drift within the circle of their influence; another says it
is his majestic ideas, his vast schemes for the territorial
aggrandizement of England, his patriotic and unselfish ambition to
spread her beneficent protection and her just rule over the pagan
wastes of Africa and make luminous the African darkness with the glory
of her name; and another says he wants the earth, wants it for his
own, and that the secret belief that he will get it and let his
friends in on the ground floor is *the* secret that rivets so many
eyse on him and keeps him in the zenith...

I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall
buy a piece of the rope as a keepsake... The great bulk of the savages
must go. The white man wants their lands, and all must go excepting
such percentage of them as he will need to do his work for him on
terms determined by himself. Since history has removed the element of
guesswork from this matter and made it certainty, the humanest way of
diminishing the black population should be adopted, not the old, cruel
ways of the past. Mr. Rhodes and his gangs have been following the old
ways. They have been chartered to rob and slay, and they lawfully do
it, but not in a compassionate and Christian spirit. They rob the
Mashonas and the Matabeles of a portion of their territories in the
hallowed old style of "purchase" for a song, and then they force a
quarrel and take the rest by strong hand. They rob the natives of
their cattle under the pretext that all the cattle in the country
belonged to the king whom they have tricked and assassinated. They
issue "regulations" requiring the incensed and harrassed natives to
work for the white settlers, and neglect their own affairs to do it.
This is slavery, and it is several times worse than was the American
slavery which used to pain England so much; for when the Rhodesian
slave is sick, superannuated, or otherwise disabled, he must support
himself or starve--his master is under no obligation to support him.

The reduction of the population by Rhodesian methods to the desired
limit is a return to the old-time slow-misery and lingering-death
system of a discredited time and a crude "civilization." We humanely
reduce an overplus of dogs by the swift method of chloroform; the Boer
humanely reduced an overplus of blacks by swift suffocation; the
nameless but right-hearted Australian pioneer humanely reduced his
overplus of aboriginal neighbors by a sweetened swift death concealed
in a poisoned pudding. All these are admirable, and worthy of praise;
you and I would rather suffer either of these deaths thirty times over
on thirty successive days than linger out one of the Rhodesian
twenty-year deaths, with its daily burden of insult, humiliation, and
forced labor for a man whose entire race the victim hates. Rhodesia is
a happy name for that land of piracy and pillage, and puts the right
stain upon it. --from *Following the Equator*

RELATED MARK TWAIN QUOTES 2

From "The Lowest Animal"

Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his
country-takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys
him. Man has done this in all the ages. There is not an acre of
ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or
that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle after
cycle, by force and bloodshed.

Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He
has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held
other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day
he is always some man's slave for wages, and does that man's work, and
this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his
work. The higher animals are the only ones who do their own work and
provide their own living.

Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country,
under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps
multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab
slices of other people's countries, and to keep them from grabbing
slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the
blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of
man"-with his mouth.

RELATED MARK TWAIN QUOTE 3

from an address to Congress on copyrights

(Twain was arguing the injustice that land titles are perpetual but
that copyrights are not. He lampoons the oft used claim that people ae
entitled to be enriched by land monopoly because of their foresight in
realizing that the land will increase in value.)

I put a supposititious case, a dozen Englishmen who travel through
South Africa and camp out, and eleven of them see nothing at all; they
are mentally blind. But there is one in the party who knows what this
harbor means and what the lay of the land means. To him it means that
some day a railway will go through here, and there on that harbor a
great city will spring up. That is his idea. And he has another idea,
which is to go and trade his last bottle of Scotch whiskey and his
last horse-blanket to the principal chief of that region and buy a
piece of land the size of Pennsylvania.